Rachel Fang
Teacher: Mr.Hitchcox
ENG3U
October 11th 2015

Fiery Cross
Recently, there was a series of homicide case that happened in a rural town, and all the decedents were killed in a variety of cruel means. These incidents that were quite shocking in this town, and the people were too scared to go outside of their homes.

Based on detailed cases analysis, the detective Richard, who was well known in Police Department, judged that these cases were more likely to be done by a certain person or a same group, because these series of cases were stupendously similar to each other. All the decedents were surgeons from many hospitals in this town. And all the surgeons were killed through some sharp tools like scalpels, and their corpses were abandoned in the wild field by the murderer. These incidents caused a impact on all the surgeons in this town, and they felt frightened. They did not know if these nightmares would fall upon their heads. The only one point that confused Richard was that all the crime scenes were left in a undisturbed wild field. He wondered if the surgeons who had been killed had appeared obediently followed the murderer to the wild field without a struggle. The more surprising thing was that policemen could not find any trace of wrestling in the crime scenes. Why surgeons did not try any possible way to resist with the murderer? Were they are bewitched by the murderer? Multitudinous questions plagued Richard. When it came to the surgeons, Richard did not have good feeling for them. One year ago, on a cold night, Richard’s wife Vivien suddenly felt great pain that from her stomach. At that time, Richard was chasing several criminals in the wild field. She had to come alone to the hospital when she was suffering. Nobody knew where to find the surgeon who was supposed to be on the duty. The fact was that the surgeon was busy chatting with some friends on the Internet. After injecting a shot of pain-agent to Vivien, the surgeon continued to chat on the website. The result was that Vivien had to suffer agony as she died. When the surgeon realized the terrible situation, it was too late. However, the final autopsy result revealed that Vivien just had an appendicular perforation. Richard was coming back home at noontime. When he opened his son’s room’s door he realized that his son Jeremy was not often at home as he used to be in the past. Suddenly, the photo of his son on the most obvious place of desk attracted Richard’s attention. In this photo, his son looked tall, handsome and well built. But after careful observation, Jeremy’s facial expression did not correspond with his past sunlight personality. As he observed the picture, Richard was surprised to find that his son even had a fluffy beard. There was a strong sense of strangeness that suddenly hit Richard’s mind, as he realized that his son had grown up and that he had missed a lot of moments. And his son was much older to be recognized right away. He strongly regretted that he really had missed so much in son’s childhood. He was usually busy with a variety of cases, therefore he had to go outside for business or stay up all night for cases instead of having a normal life. He even did not have a normal dinner with son for a long time. Even during the Qing Ming festival, he did not have time to see his wife with son in the cemetery. He still remembered his son’s resentment from his eyes. Richard felt quite depressed, so he optionally opened the books in son’s shelf. What surprised him was that a lot of books were related to the process of detectives finding the real killers. He wondered why Jeremy read these books. And then he even found a specific map from the shelf. He felt so shocked that his eyes popped out. This was a map of this small town, and it was obvious to see that Jeremy used red mark pens to circle some places carefully. Richard realized all the places were hospitals that had cases recently. Putting all red circles together, result was that all circles form a fiery cross! His nerves suddenly tighten together. This was like a situation that where he felt a heavy stone in his heart. Did these cases made by his son? Did his son have plan for a long period of time? Was his aim to kill all the surgeons? At this time, something occurred in Richard’s mind. After observing this cross again, he finally found the hospital in last circle that did not have any case yet was that hospital that made Jeremy lose his mom! According to this prediction, it was true that his son was the real murderer. His son wanted to kill the surgeon who let him lose mom directly at last. Maybe the painful of losing mom by wrong diagnosis still remained in Jeremy’s mind. Was this the reason why he wants to kill all the surgeons？

Suddenly, he also found there was a line of figures on the side of the map. These figures were 1,21,42 and 64 respectively. What did these figures mean? Richard tried any possible way to figure them out. After writing down the date of crime cases, if the date of fist case was regarded as the first day, the time interval between the following cases totally fit these four figures. In addition, the distance between today and last case exactly equaled to 23 days. In other word, the fifth case would happen on today! This result was a big shock for Richard. The first idea in his mind was to stop his son’s behavior. He called his son by shivering hands. When he acquired the signal from his son, but son dropped the phone right away. Was Jeremy going to kill the surgeon now? He became quite breathless and immediately called the hospital. And he said:“The situation is quite serious now. Please tell me if all the surgeons stay in the hospital?” The charge nurse answered quickly :“10 minutes ago, a surgeon went outside for some private things. The surgeon did not come back yet, and the hospital could not get in touch with this surgeon.”

Upon hearing the surgeon’s name, Richard instantly understood the reason, because this surgeon was the person who let Jeremy lose his mom. The surgeon must follow Jeremy. But why did the surgeon follow Jeremy initiatively. Did the surgeon hear from a series of crime cases about surgeons? Although it was this surgeon’s fault to kill his wife by medical mistake, this surgeon did not need to lose a life. Now, he should find his son Jeremy immediately. At that time, he received a message from his son. This message says: “Do you want to know the final result? Arrive at the west wild field right away! ” Jeremy’s mood read so strange and scary. Richard realized that Jeremy was trying to provoke police.

Richard redeployed some police and drove to the west wild field. His car looked like a rapid horse because of fast speed. When he arrived at the destination, he jumped out of car directly without thinking. Suddenly, he heard some drastic sounds of fighting. This made him feel fairly depressed more. At the corner of the west wild field, he saw his son Jeremy was fighting with a thin surgeon. His son whose body was quite strong had enough benefits to win the thin surgeon. Then, he found that there was a scalpel in son’s hand.

“Bam!” A gunshot happened at that time. The gun that was in Richard’s hand is surrounded by smog. His eyes looked like sharp swords, but nobody knew his heart was blooding at the same time. Jeremy’ hand that gripped a scalpel was shot by his father’s gun. The painful was enough to let him fall down on the ground. The thin “surgeon” became speechless because of astonishment, and then he picked up the scalpel at once. Richard walked towards his son. Meanwhile, he was surprised to find that there was a surgeon lay on the ground. Because of view block, he does not notice this surgeon at first. This surgeon’s facial expression appeared his scary. And his limbs were strapped through strong strings. Richard felt confused again: what happened?

Jeremy lay at the ground with a lot of painful, and he loudly shouted at his father:“Daddy, you shot the wrong person. He is the real murderer!” This sudden news really made Richard feel surprised. But he had run out of time, the fake “surgeon” who was the real murderer ran towards Richard in a fast speed. “Bam!”The fake surgeon was shoot by another policeman.

In the hospital, Jeremy told Richard the whole truth of this even. The truth was that Jeremy had a strong interest in adventure after listening recent cases, so he wanted to be a supernumerary policeman. He kept noticing these cases silently. Meanwhile, he even tried to analysis these cases. One day, the inspiration came to his mind, he found the regular rules in dates of crime cases. After marking the locations of these hospitals whose surgeons lost lives on the map, he found it was a cross shape. Thus, he concluded the next target and time. He wanted to share his opinions with his father, but he also felt speechless with his father. Vivien’s death made a situation that the communication gap between son and father became wider and wider. He said his father Richard thought him was quite childish all the time, so he decided to catch criminals by himself to prove his mature. This leaded to the fighting with the murderer.

As for the scalpel, Jeremy snatched it from murderer’s hands. In addition, the reason why he did not answer when his father called him is that he did not want the murderer to notice this in the process of struggling.

After that, Richard took the evidence from the conversation between him and the murderer. The reason why this mid-aged man pretended a fake “surgeon” was that he wanted to avenge the killer of his son. His son lost life on the operating table, because he did not give the extra money to give to the surgeon. The result was that the evil surgeon made medical mistakes on purpose, this lead to his son’s death. One day, when he was praying, he inadvertently found a strange thing that putting the locations of all the hospital can shape a cross. He believed this was god’s will, God wanted him to revenge for his son’s death. Richard asked him why doctors would obediently go with him. On hearing that, the murderer’ eyes were full of contempt light. He said:“it is quite simple, I just need to call surgeons and tell them I am the family members of their patients. The next step is to ask them to go outside for medical treatment. And I park my car near the hospital and wait them in my car. They usually run towards my car, because I will give them the extra money. Next, I just need to drive them to somewhere silently and kill them by scalpel quickly. Last but not least, solving their corpses in a proper way is the end of any cases.”

Through this case, the communication gap between Richard and Jeremy became more and more narrow. Richard said:“I really learn a lot through this time. Although you are not a real detective, the truth shows that your intelligence is enough to do it well. I am proud of you, and I strongly believe that your mom who stays in the haven now will have the same feeling as mine. Jeremy, do you feel painful very often because of bullet wounds? It is my fault. But you really look like a murderer on account of your cold smile. ”

Jeremy gave a toothpaste smile. In a split second, the ward was full of the taste of sun. He continued to say:“My smile is not cold. On the contrary, it is the symbol of a handsome young man!”